'I heard it online'…

Leaders of the Organizing Committee of Thanh Chuong District Party Committee met, discussed and grasped the situation at the local Party cell. Photo: Archive

The reason I became a "village-level reporter" is because many people think I have free time, have worked for many years in Propaganda work, worked as a reporter for the district, now there are many means of information, there is also the internet,... so every month reporting only 20-30 minutes to the Party cell is a simple task.

But the truth is it is not simple. In the first months, I was very worried. Nowadays, every day people have access to a lot of information from newspapers, radio, TV, internet,... but in our hands there is a lack of official information and documents, especially directional information when there are policies, big events, sensitive content.

In the first months, based on available resources, I provided some general, synthetic, necessary content for the minimum, basic awareness of grassroots party members, such as: The relationship between major countries in the current period; About the "four risks our Party once warned about"; The East Sea issue; About the phenomenon of climate change; About the Covid-19 pandemic; About food security; Energy security; About directing the production and registration of OCOP products; About the policy of building new rural areas and civilized urban areas;...

Available capital is also limited, moreover, reporting current events must adhere to space and time, and be associated with the breath of life. I listen to the program "Panorama Press", read newspapers, including official online newspapers (Party newspapers, Government Information Portal, Vietnam.net, VietNam.net Weekly, Nghe An Electronic Newspaper,...). I also use my acquaintances with senior or current reporters to ask for propaganda documents to supplement information and materials.

There were tea and wine sessions, many of them sat and debated after each news program. Some of them gave very frank and sincere comments: I wish you had given more information about "Our army is not doing business now", I wish you had said more about the construction of Cam Ranh port, I wish you had added the information that Major General X had said,... Then they turned on their phones, "speak with evidence, tell with proof" and pointed out "hot news",...

So I have to continue writing the topic: "About information on social networks".

It can be said that now, each person who goes online is not only a "journalist", but also an "editor-in-chief". Anyone can easily write, disseminate, and spread information on the internet at a very fast speed. Normally, we go to Facebook, YouTube, TikTok,... to learn, exchange information, communicate, connect,... But there are bad people who take advantage of social networks, often writing articles, posting clips that distort and deceive readers. These are pages and groups that are not transparent about personal information, do not use real names, and have unclear addresses; many pages of reactionaries from abroad; there are disguised pages of discontented, reactionary, and destructive people,... There is a lot of false and fabricated information that has a bad and negative impact on public opinion. What is noteworthy is that this "shocking" information, which causes "curiosity", often spreads through the "crowd" effect, with many people coming to see and read it, unable to distinguish between right and wrong, real and fake, but still calmly participate in commenting, expressing indignation,... Thus, it invisibly creates a wave of public opinion, following the scheme of the spreader.

The Internet and social networks are the “information highway”, an indispensable means of modern times. There is real information, fake information, healthy information, good information, bad information, negative information. If we do not know how to filter, it is difficult to distinguish between accurate information and unverified information, and we may even be deceived.